🎧 2: How can creativity fit your needs?

Hello and welcome to Divergent Menopause, previously known as The Autistic Perimenopause: A Temporary Regression.

I am Sam Galloway (she/her), an autistic ADHDer, and I have recently had a hysterectomy. As a neurodivergent perimenopause and PMDD survivor, I offer peer support and share knowledge on how to make it through the hard times.

Thanks for joining me on this wild midlife ride! 🎢

“Care for your needs as a priority, rather than leaving them at the bottom of the list.”

I am delighted to be joined again by Allegra Chapman (she/her) from Creative Fix in the second episode of Divergent Creativity in Menopause!

Together Allegra and I have created this four part mini series on the importance of creativity during the menopause transition and beyond.

🎧 1) What is creativity is and why does it matter?

🎧 2) How can creativity fit your needs?

🎧 3) Can you be creative by accident?

🎧 4) Can your creativity change as you change?

In this second part we talked about:

💕 how societal expectations and internalised ableism combine to make us de-prioritise our creativity

💕 giving ourselves permission to meet our needs, and pacing our creative endeavours around our menstrual cycles/menopause stage

💕 being unable to do our best creative work if we are in neurodivergent burnout.

Everyday creativity can be free, low key and take place both in the home and out and about.

Resources and further reading

Allegra’s inspiring book ‘Creativity is your self-care: 52 creative therapy exercises exercises to support your emotional wellbeing all year round’ is available to buy here!

If you would like to immerse deeper into Allegra’s creative wisdom, you can sign up to her course, Divergent Creatives

The online programme to enable neurodivergent or disabled people to build a sustainable and joyful creative practice. If you’re a writer or artist who has more ideas than you know what to do with, but you struggle to finish things, or even to get started, then this course is going to help you get sh*t done!

Dr Samantha Newman AKA Female GP Monthly Cycling “Your menstrual cycle is a natural process made up of four key stages: Menstruation, Follicular, Ovulation, and Luteal. Knowing how these stages work helps you better understand your body and mind.”

Kate Codrington Menopause facilitator, speaker and author (Moon and Menopause tracking)

Red School Menstrual cycle and menopause awareness

A group of autistic menopause researchers based in the UK and Canada invited creative submissions reflecting people’s lived experience of this often challenging life transition. They wrote a paper on the submissions called ‘Stepping into who I fully am: A creative exploration of Autistic menopause.’

Creative exploration of Autistic menopause encouraged emotional catharsis, self-understanding, and activism/artivism. Autistic Community Researchers noted transcendent, almost “magical” dimensions of connecting with other Autistic people’s lived experiences. Our creative emancipatory approach enabled Autistic, multimedia responses which traditional research methods would not have elicited…

… Traditional research methods have limitations in capturing lived experiences of the Autistic menopausal transition. In this study creative, multimodal, arts-based approaches enhanced understanding by capturing nuanced interpretations and meanings.

The ability to communicate through creative submissions facilitated participants’ self-expression and they recognised the potential therapeutic value of the creative process, as a “remedy” for Autistic menopause related difficulties.

This study adopted a novel approach to data analysis in which Autistic community researchers used creative, reflexive approaches to respond to arts-based submissions rather than relying on traditional academic methods.

For both Autistic research participants and Autistic researchers, creative methods had the potential to act as a catalyst for activism, artivism, and self-actualisation, encouraging personal transformation and magical transcendence through a process of (to paraphrase one of our participants) “stepping into” who we fully are.

Stepping into Who I Fully Am: A Creative Exploration of Autistic Menopause

Author(s): Mx Rose Matthews , Christine A. Jenkins , Margaret Janse van Rensburg, Miranda J. Brady , Rachel L. Moseley , Julie M. Gamble-Turner

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 27 June 2025

It is a pleasure to continue sharing my conversation with Allegra with you. I hope you are enjoying it, and that you are able to fit some crucial creativity around your current needs and within your fluctuating capacity.

Cheers,

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